July 2020

A new trailer, screenshots, and more were released for F.I.S.T: Forged in Shadow Torch, the action title starring a rabbit with a mech arm.

The post Rabbit Action Game F.I.S.T: Forged in Shadow Torch Story Details and Screenshots Revealed appeared first on Siliconera.

Like previous years, NBA 2K21 will feature multiple cover stars. Current-gen versions will have the Blazer’s Dame Lillard on the front, while the next-gen editions will feature Zion Williamson, who in any other year would be coming up on his second season, but in this current hellscape is still a rookie.

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A lot of people around the world, especially in the US, are still stuck at home, away from friends and loved ones. Out of this isolation new ways of keeping in touch have emerged, including...buttplugs and vibrators that can sync with Animal Crossing and vibrate whenever the player swings a shovel.

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The cheap earbuds that came with your phone served their purpose for a while, but you’re ready to move up to the big leagues. You’re ready to hear your music in ways you never imagined. But in a world where a set of headphones can cost more than a car, it’s hard to know where to start. Here are some great-sounding…

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Today, during the Muv-Luv Expo livestream, Anchor had a few reveals related to upcoming products related to the popular visual novel series.

First of all, a brand new digital version of the super-rare artbook âge Graphicers has been released on Pixiv booth for 1,200 yen. This translates into approximately $11.

Not only it’s awesome, containing artwork from the Muv-Luv series, Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien, and more, but it’s so rare that even I haven’t ever seen it. Now everyone can enjoy it thanks to this digital release.

Speaking of digital releases, the Muv-Luv alternative manga will receive an English localization in digital form and it’s coming this month, July 2020.

The manga counts 17 volumes and art by Azusa Makishima. It’s also very good. Each volume will cost $10.99.

Last, but not least, a few sketches of the upcoming Muv-Luv Alternative anime series have been shared.

They portray the Type-00F Takemikazuchi TSF mecha, and you can enjoy them below. The anime is currently in the early stages of development.

Today, during the Muv-Luv Expo livestream, Anchor announced a release window for the Steam release in English of the previously-announced Muv-Luv Unlimited The Day After.

The release will include parts from 00 to 03 which have published so far in Japan, and it’ll come to Steam in 2020. 

You can check out a trailer at the bottom of the post. 

Muv-Luv Unlimited The Day After is quite interesting as it’s a direct sequel to Muv-Luv Unlimited. It branches off the main trilogy in a much darker way. Yes. if you’re wondering, it’s even darker than Alternative in some of its aspects.

It was originally released in Japan as part of the Chronicles disks between 2010 and 2013, with part 04 still coming at some point down the line. It will be released roughly at the same time in the west as in Japan.

On top of that, in order to celebrate the announcement, creator Kouki Yoshimune shared a few never-seen-before image boards of Episode 04, which you can enjoy below. Incidentally, they include the very first look at the F-35 TSF.

Today, during the Muv-Luv Expo livestream, Anchor finally announced a new release window for Muv-Luv Photonmelodies.

The game will launch in English for PC this summer 2020. To be more precise, it’ll come by the end of July.

It will cost $29.99 and you can check out a trailer at the bottom of the trailer. 

Photonmelodies is the second Muv-Luv side-story compilation originally released for PS3, which is being localized and ported to PC by Anchor. It’s also arguably the best, including the (assumed) Muv-Luv Altered Fable – A Shimmering Shard of Space-Time, Muv-Luv Alternative Chronicles Resurrection, and my personal favorite Muv-Luv Alternative Chronicles Aspiration, which provides a more extensive look on the European front of the franchise’s war-torn world.

It’s the last release promised with the original Muv-Luv Kickstarter, following Photonflowers which launched last year.

It originally launched in Japan in 2013, but finally, western gamers will get to enjoy it as well.

During the same event, we saw new gameplay of the new Muv-Luv action game Project Mikhail, Muv-Luv Unlimited The Day After was announced for the west, and the Muv-Luv Alternative manga was also announced coming digitally in English.

Jump Rope Challenge, the free Switch game that Nintendo released two weeks ago, has received a content update, version 1.1.0, that is available now.

In this free update, players can now choose even more costumes and backgrounds to use while they are jumping rope.

Specifically, the new costumes that the player can dress the bunny mascot in are centered around recognizable Nintendo characters. The full list of costumes that are added in this update are as follows:

• Mario
• Luigi
• Peach
• Toad
• Bowser
• Wario
• Link
• Samus
• Isabelle
• Inkling Girl
• Inkling Boy
• Arcade Bunny

In addition to the extra costumes and backgrounds, this new update to the game allows you to double-under while jumping rope. This means that you are able to swing the rope twice in a single hop.

In case you missed the information about Jump Rope Challenge, it is a free to download and play game that some Nintendo employees developed while working from home over the past few months.

The game will keep track of how many days you’ve jumped in a row, and you can set a daily goal to try to meet. That’s about all you can do, but it works pretty well for what it is.

There is no indication whether this will be the only update that Jump Rope Challenge will receive or if we can look forward to new costume and background additions in the future.

It’s a fairly simple and barebones game, but if you need something to keep you active at home, it’s worth checking out. It is free to download on the Switch until September.

Today, during the Muv-Luv Expo livestream, Anchor shared a brand new gameplay video of its upcoming game code-named Project Mikhail.

We also learn that the game is an online multiplayer game in which all players will play within a single world.

The video showcases a look at customization and battle gameplay, but keep in mind that this is pre-alpha gameplay so it’s still very much unfinished.

On top of that, showcased here is the mobile version of the game, but the PC version will actually be the lead platform for Project Mikhail.

You can check it out below.

We also get a few slides including more information about the game including an explanation of how the story will work. 

Spike Chunsoft has revealed the new Danganronpa TV web series, of which the first episode is now available on YouTube.

The post Danganronpa TV Web Series Revealed With ‘How I Discovered Danganronpa’ appeared first on Siliconera.

There are now Jump Rope Challenge costumes inspired by Super Mario, Animal Crossing, Metroid, and Splatoon characters.

The post Jump Rope Challenge Costumes Pull From Iconic Nintendo Series appeared first on Siliconera.

A successful Star Wars story is bound to expand into books and comics, and it's now happening to The Mandalorian, the hit show that launched on Disney+ last year.

Six Mandalorian books were announced on the official Star Wars site, the most exciting of which is an untitled original adult novel written by Adam Christopher and published by Del Ray. For more insight into the visual style of the show, fans can look forward to The Art of the Mandalorian book by Phil Szostak, as well as The Mandalorian: The Ultimate Visual Guide by Pablo Hidalgo.

Other books include an untitled junior novelization by Joe Schreiber, and a level-two reader book called The Mandalorian: Allies & Enemies by Brooke Vitale, who is also penning an untitled 8x8 storybook based on the series. There's even going to be A Little Golden Book that recaps season one. Marvel Comics and IDW Publishing are both making Mandalorian comic books.

No specific release dates were given for any individual book, but some will hit in the fall (likely around the launch of season two), and others will roll out in the winter and spring. If you want more of the show, Disney's inviting you to read and read and read.

Anthony Trujillo is an artist at Blizzard, where he’s worked on stuff like World of Warcraft.

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Fan creations in Animal Crossing: New Horizons continue to amaze us. We’ve seen Pokemon battles, Smash Bros. characters, and even recreations of shows like Danny Phantom. Nothing should surprise us anymore, yet a player recently recreated the cast from the hit indie Stardew Valley, and the result is impressive.

Reddit user Zandrewbert8 posted screenshots on the Stardew Valley subreddit (via GoNintendo) of their recreation of the 36 characters from the game. Not only did they create outfits for each character, but they fully customized a room to match each’s personality.

We see all of our favorite bachelors and bachelorettes recreated, such as Leah, Abigail, Sebastian, and Elliot, as well as the other citizens who live in Pelican Town. Every single item, from clothing to props, is tailored specifically to each character.

You can tell how much time and effort Zandrewbert8 put into each character’s theme because each one is completely recognizable if you’ve played Stardew Valley. For example, bachelorette Penny is in a library with plenty of books, and bachelor Alex is surrounded by sports and workout equipment.

Jump Rope Challenge, the free Nintendo Switch fitness game that released in June, has just received a free update that adds several new costumes to the game's rabbit protagonist. They're mostly the usual suspects, but there's one surprise.

Here's the complete list of character costumes included in the update.

• Mario
• Luigi
• Peach
• Toad
• Bowser
• Wario
• Link
• Samus
• Isabelle
• Squid Kid (girl)
• Squid Kid (boy)
• Arcade Bunny
  
  

Following the release of the big Call of Duty: Modern Warfare/Warzone Season 4 Reloaded update, Infinity Ward has made a few other small changes.

First, a playlist update for Modern Warfare makes a changes to what's available to play. The Shoot the Ship playlist has been removed, while Shipment (5v5) and Shoot House (8v8) have now been separated into individual playlists.

Kongregate, the online flash game portal and game publisher, has been hit with layoffs amid a restructure that will bring major changes to the site. This news, announced via the Kongregate forums and picked up on by Gamesindustry.biz, indicates that the site will no longer take new game submissions going forward, and that the site's forums will close.

"We will be rolling out several changes to the website over the coming days and months, the first of which is that we will no longer be accepting new titles on Kongregate.com as of today," the forum post reads. "We also will not be adding any more badges to games. You will still be able to play our existing library of over 128,000 amazing games and developers will be able to update their games as normal."

The site will also be disabling social features over time, including closing all but 20 chat rooms and moving forums to a read-only state.

In addition to launching the Xbox Series X console this year, Microsoft is rolling out its xCloud streaming service with Game Pass to help reach a bigger audience. The head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, wants to assure people that Microsoft remains committed to the physical console, which really should be no surprise given that Microsoft has plans to make another Xbox console after the Series X.

Speaking during a GameLab fireside chat, Spencer stressed that cloud gaming will not take over and replace consoles anytime soon. The xCloud service is merely another option for people who want it.

"I've never tried to position xCloud as a replacement for your gaming PC or for a console," he said. "I like to sit down in front of the big screen and play on a console. I'm sitting here at my PC rig right now and I like to play here. But I'm not always in front of those two devices and I want to be able to play where I want to go play on the device that I choose."

Publisher Annapurna Interactive has unveiled a new first-person puzzle game, and it looks incredible. Maquette is the debut game of studio Graceful Decay, and it's focused on recursive, nested environments. We were confused by that description at first, but the trailer below clears up everything.

The environments within Maquette seem to be matching concentric areas that scale down. In a simple example in the trailer, an area might contain a block that is too large to move--but if you head into one of the buildings there you'll find a smaller version of that same building, and moving the block there moves the bigger block, too.

It looks like many of the puzzles will involve manipulating the size of objects and moving smaller versions of large items. The trailer below shows off a few examples, and make the game look very clever.

Microsoft's Xbox team has in the past been criticized for a perceived lack of first-party exclusives compared to PlayStation and other competing platforms. But going forward, Xbox boss Phil Spencer doesn't believe that will be an issue. After acquiring studios like Obsidian, Double Fine, and Ninja Theory, and starting a new studio with the writer of Red Dead Redemption, Microsoft now has 15 Xbox Games Studios teams, all of which are developing content exclusively for Xbox and PC.

These studio acquisitions and formations came at no small expense, of course, and Spencer recently spoke about how this was made possible thanks to the leadership from Microsoft higher-ups believing in Spencer's vision.

"First-party content is really important to where we're going," Spencer said during a recent GameLab event. "It's important to our hardware platforms, it's important to things like Game Pass and our overall gaming strategy at Microsoft. As we got in place the new leadership team a few years ago, we started building our strategy and articulating our strategy internally to the company, it was really encouraging to see the support that we were getting from the board and the senior leadership team at the company to go and grow our first-party."

Mafia: Definitive Edition will feature an all-new cast when it releases on August 28 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. In English language territories, Tommy will be played by Italian-Australian actor Andrew Bongiorno, who also serves as the likeness for the character and performed motion capture for the role.

In a new post on the Mafia website, developer Hanger 13 has discussed the casting process for this remake. The remake is extensive enough that they did not want to reuse the original audio from the 2002 Mafia, and according to Hanger 13 president Haden Blackman, they wanted to ensure that they made use of new technologies for this release. "Since our cinematics rely heavily on motion capture data, it was essential that we have both voice and physical performances," he says. "We looked for actors who not only sounded the part, but also looked the part and could perform on both the motion capture stage and in the VO booth."

While producer Nicole Sandoval initially looked into whether they could reuse the original actors, it ultimately was not viable. "No one's voice stays the same, especially after such a long period of time," she says. The team decided that building up an ensemble cast would be important, especially since a major theme of Mafia--and most mob media--is the concept of family.

Team 17 has announced a new Worms game to celebrate the series' 25th anniversary, and it's unlike anything we've seen before from the series. The game, Worms Rumble, is a real-time combat game for up to 32 players, with cross-play enabled. It will release for PC, PS5, and PS4.

Each player will control a single worm in either Team Deathmatch or Battle Royale (both solo and squad) combat, and will battle it out over huge, semi-destructable environments. The game will receive regular content updates to add new levels and worm customizations, and there's a rank system to unlock cosmetics.

Weapons available at launch include the iconic Bazooka, Hand Cannon, Baseball Bat, Assault Rifle, and Shotgun. The trailer below also shows the Holy Hand Grenade making an appearance.

Final Fantasy XIV's delayed 5.3 patch will now arrive in August, Square Enix has announced. The update was originally scheduled to release on June 16 but had to be pushed back due to production difficulties that arose from the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I would like to apologize again to all of our players for the delay of Patch 5.3--Reflections in Crystal, which was originally scheduled to release on June 16th," game producer and director Naoki Yoshida wrote on FFXIV's official forums. "Although our development and operations teams, as well as QA testing, have experienced a number of setbacks due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), I am pleased to inform you that development production is back on course, and we've settled on a new patch release schedule."

Yoshida went on to announce that Patch 5.3 is now scheduled to launch on August 11. "We did everything we could to try and release this update at some point in mid-July, but in the end, we determined more time was needed to thoroughly test and debug the next alliance raid of YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse and the new large-scale encounters of the resistance weapons content," Yoshida said.

Resident Evil Village details were recently divulged in a Famitsu interview with producers Tsuyoshi Kanda and Pete Fabiano. The interview was translated and shared on Twitter by Resident Evil historian Alex Aniel. There were a few interesting tidbits revealed about the upcoming game, including how Village will conclude Ethan's story, which started in Resident Evil 7: biohazard.

According to the translated interview, Resident Evil Village is about 60% complete and has been in development for about 3.5 years. It also serves as the conclusion to Ethan Winter's story that started in Resident Evil 7: biohazard; however, the developer didn't make it clear which of the two mid-game choices is canon. In Resident Evil 7, you're asked to choose who to save between your wife and another character, which results in some striking differences. They also said that the title emphasizes the village because it is "another protagonist" in the game.

Village also brings back two staples of the RE franchise--inventory management and puzzle solving--but no specifics were given. They also said that making the game exclusively for next-gen allowed them to make loading times nearly nonexistent, giving the game a deeper level of immersion. Unfortunately, they didn't expand on what they meant by this.

Nintendo is hosting another competition in its colorful Switch shooter Splatoon 2 later this month. The Turf War July 2020 tournament kicks off on Saturday, July 18, and the prize is $25 USD in My Nintendo Gold points.

Every member of the winning team will take home 2,500 My Nintendo Gold points, which can either be redeemed for rewards on the My Nintendo website or used as credit toward select games and DLC on the Switch Eshop. The tournament is open to players in North America, and each match will be contested in Turf War.

Registration is open now until July 18, 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. To enter, you and your teammates will need to create an account on Battlefy. You can read the full rules for the Turf War July 2020 tournament here.

A new update is now live for the Switch version of Pokemon Home. This patch brings the cloud service up to version 1.1.1 and resolves an issue that should make it much easier to complete the Isle of Armor Pokedex.

According to the patch notes on Nintendo's website, the new update fixes a bug that prevented Pokemon imported from Home from being registered in the Isle of Armor Pokedex. Once you've installed the update, open Pokemon Home, connect it to your copy of Sword or Shield, and save; this will cause any Pokemon that weren't properly registered to be counted in your Isle of Armor Pokedex.

The Isle of Armor is the setting of Sword and Shield's first expansion, and it's home to more than 100 returning Pokemon not available in mainland Galar. Although these monsters can only be found in the wild in the Isle of Armor, there are ways to get them without owning the DLC, such as by transferring them from previous games through Home.

FIST: Forged in Shadow Torch, a dieselpunk action-platformer starring an anthropomorphic rabbit with a massive metal fist, has been announced for PlayStation 4. Detailed in a PlayStation Blog post, the game takes place on a planet inhabited by animals that must battle an invading race of machine-like creatures.

The main character Rayton is a battle-hardened rabbit with a massive third arm made of metal attached to his back. Rayton must battle and traverse through an industrialized city to rescue a friend captured by the machines.

The rabbit warrior has other weapons--a drill and a whip--at his disposal, allowing for a variety of combos and the chance for players to adapt their play style to different enemy types. The game features 2D combat and traversal with 3D characters and environments.

The Atari VCS didn't make its original launch date of March 2020, but thankfully, the console has a new release window. The Indiegogo-funded system will ship out to backers this fall, which is also when it'll be available at retailers. The classic-inspired console is still available for pre-order at many locations, so if you haven't snagged one yet, you still have time.

VCS stands for Video Computer System, a nod to Atari's 1977 console bearing the same name. Revealed in 2017, it's styled to look like the original Atari consoles and features both modern and older games. One of its launch titles is a reimagining of the Atari classic, Missile Command. Missile Command: Recharged is already available on a number of platforms and will launch alongside the Atari VCS this fall. The VCS also supports the ability to download, stream, and play games through a Linux-based operating system.

As for its specs, it's unclear exactly what hardware the Atari VCS is packing. It's powered by an AMD Raven Ridge 2 processor and Ryzen GPU, but other than that, we don't know many details. The VCS comes in two different models, the 400 and 800, which boast 4GB DDR4 RAM and 8GB DDR4 RAM respectively.

During the first quarter of this year, Twitch broke 3 billion total hours watched for the first time. The momentum has continued from April through June as it surpassed 5 billion total hours watched for a single three-month span.

A new report from Streamlabs showcases just how popular Twitch has gotten during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic as it previously averaged 2.7 billion hours watched last year. None of its competitors came close to matching its viewership as YouTube Gaming hit 1.5 billion hours and Facebook Gaming maxed out at 822 million, which is triple the amount it had last year. Microsoft's now-defunct Mixer service came in fourth with only 106 million hours watched during the second quarter. Prominent streamers such as Shroud and Ninja, who reportedly made over $20 million to move to Mixer, could be switching back to Twitch and help boost it further. Twitch led in other key analytics, as well. Nearly 10 million unique channels streamed 192 million hours of content, which is more than double the previous quarter.

Today, during the Muv-Luv Expo livestream, the developers of the series answered quite a few questions from the fans, providing interesting details.

We hear about the new games code-named Project Immortal and Project Mikhail

Below you can check out a summary of the information they shared staring with series creator Kouki Yoshimune:

I can't even begin to imagine how a developer attempts to shoehorn another battle royale onto the market right now.

In developer GungHo's case, it seems, they've taken the last-person-standing fun of Fortnite and fused it with the neon-hued mayhem of Splatoon. The result is frenzied free-to-play Ninjala, a new title that successfully, if perhaps inexplicably, apes much of its magic from other titles, yet somehow manages to cultivate a curious charm all of its own.

While it looks and sounds similar to the games it draws inspiration from, Ninjala's quirky fighting mechanics admittedly stand out. To maintain its PG veneer, our pint-sized ninjas don't fight with guns or swords, but instead use foam katanas and yoyos and novelty bats to inflict damage, utilising their, er, ninja gum to pull off ultimate attacks and trick shots.

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Today D3 Publisher released the first official batch of screenshots of the upcoming Earth Defense Force 6. 

Of course, we get to see plenty of enemies including insects, frogs, and interesting entries like what appears to be a flying dragon.

The story is set in 2027. The EDF has been driven to the verge of collapse by the war in Earth Defense Force 5, and Storm Team no longer exists even if it appears that Storm 1 is still fighting. 

The resources of the Earth Defense Force have been depleted so much that it’s actually difficult to get a clear picture of what’s left.

On the other hand, many aliens have been left on Earth and have started breeding, colonizing several cities, and growing in numbers. 

Incidentally, we also see how enemies can regenerate lost limbs like arms or legs.

You can check out all the screenshots below.

At the moment Earth Defense Force 6 is known to be coming in 2021. Platforms have not been announced just yet.

Another EDF game, Earth Defense Force: World Brothers, is coming this year for PS4 and Nintendo Switch.

At the moment, no western releases have been announced for either game, which isn’t surprising since they have been revealed just recently.

A Plague Tale: Innocence has been a major success for developer Asobo Studio, critically and commercially, and has now racked up a huge sales number. The game's official Twitter account has now announced that the game has sold over 1 million copies since it released in May 2019.

The game, an action-adventure that involves dodging rats and being stealthy, was one of GameSpot's best games of 2019.

In the tweet, A Plague Tale's developers thank the game's community of players, stating that "this wouldn't have been possible without our community and we'd like to thank every one of you for supporting the game."

The game is also available through Xbox Game Pass--which, believe it or not, can actually lead to increased sales.

Death Stranding is releasing for PC on July 14, giving PC players a chance to experience Hideo Kojima's strange opus. We've already seen the minimum and recommended specs for the game, but now publisher 505 Games has revealed some more details about what to expect if you load the game up on a powerful rig.

Death Stranding on PC will feature Nvidia DLSS 2.0 technology, as long as you have a GeForce RTX GPU installed. This means that the game can run with a frame rate over 100fps at 1440p, or at over 60fps with a 4K image.

The press release sent to GameSpot includes a quote from Kojima Productions' Akio Sakamoto, praising the game's PC release with NVIDIA tech. "The extra performance Nvidia DLSS 2.0 delivers in Death Stranding allows gamers to unlock the vast graphical potential of the PC platform by increasing the graphics settings and resolution, delivering on the vision we have for the game," Sakamoto says.

In addition to Halo Infinite and Halo: The Master Chief Collection, the team at 343 Industries is working on a Halo TV show with Showtime and starring Pablo Schreiber as Master Chief. The production was shut down in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and it's unclear when it may start back up again. While we wait for that, Halo's transmedia boss Kiki Wolfkill has shared some new insight on the show and what it's trying to do

Appearing on Star Wars writer Gary Whitta's Animal Talking show, Wolfkill said it has been a "mind-bending challenge" to translate the video game series to TV.

Instead of directly adapting a previous Halo game or book, the TV show is seemingly going to tell an entirely new story. Wolfkill's team has been working with Showtime--which is GameSpot's sister company--on finding the best way to retain the essence of Halo and bring it to a new medium. This has been hard work, both on this Halo TV show and in the past. Fans will no doubt recall how Peter Jackson's Halo movie famously fell apart.